Ethan appears relieved to be rescued. As he stands, he sees the look on my face, which apparently needs no explanation. He takes a deep breath. “Good food, right?”
“Good food,” I sign.
We walk over to the counter, where Ethan helps himself to another french fry. Now that we’re farther away, I’m ready to complain. “This lunch is going to be the only one this summer, right?”
Ethan sighs again, but shakes his head and holds up a hand, indicating that I should stop. “I know. Trust me, I know,” he says. “And hopefully it is the last event, but we’ll have to see how it goes.”
“I feel like I have to put on a show. Perform my disability for charity.”
“Did you like coming here as a camper?” he asks.
“Yeah . . . ”
“Do you want to keep this place going for all the other kids?”
“Yes, I do.”
He takes a deep breath, lowering his voice and turning out to look at the lake. I follow to read his lips. “Then let’s think twice before we insult the people who could sign the checks and make this place possible.”
* * *
At the end of the day back at the cabins, I’m still dreading my Friday evening shift with Isaac. I’ve been in a funk all day, worried about the future of Gray Wolf and nervous about my situation with Isaac. Why did I have to tell him I like him? If I hadn’t, tonight would’ve been a great time to hang out and relax and forget how stressful lunch was. But instead . . . I have no idea what to expect.
Plus, the girls were arguing all day. Blake has toned it down, but not enough. Every time it seems the tension has dissipated, something sparks it anew. And even though I’m communicating solidly with our signing campers, Mackenzie keeps unnecessarily stepping over me to interpret.
“I’ll let you know when I need your help,” I tell her, having already signed back to Honey that she can use her flashlight to read in bed for a few minutes. Cabin bedtime is a lot of work each day, without Mackenzie constantly on my case.
“Well, I have to make sure,” Mackenzie says.
I shake my head but glance down at my watch. It’s already 9:20 p.m., and my shift starts in ten minutes. “Ugh, do I have time to shower?” I ask myself out loud, feeling grimy and exhausted but in no mood to rush.
“I don’t know. You have to make sure you’re on duty right on time,” Mackenzie chimes in.
Ignoring her, I rush to grab my bath towel, fresh clothes, and toiletries from my bunk. It’s not the end of the world if I’m a few minutes late to the firepit or staff cabin, since most of the other off-duty counselors are still around right now. They can help if campers need anything urgent. In my flip-flops, I walk as fast as I safely can over the uneven dirt to the bathhouse.
The lights are dim and flickering. It makes me miss my camper days when a counselor would be sitting in the entryway on the plastic chair waiting for everyone to be done. It’s eerie being here alone. But even this is less terrifying than the idea of sitting at the firepit with Isaac again.
I hang my towel and pull back the plastic curtain to one of the shower stalls. I keep my flip-flops on while I undress so I don’t step on this nasty floor. Maybe if the campgrounds had nicer showers, we’d be less inclined to call a dip in the lake or the pool a good-enough wash. After putting my clothes and towel on the hook and hanging my toiletry bucket over the rail, I turn on the water. I’m moving as fast as I can, but time is slipping away. My watch already says 9:28 p.m. There are two minutes until the start of my shift.
I step into the stream of water, but the pressure is so terrible I can hear it spurting out in bursts. I push my hair back so I can get the front wet.
Wait. I can hear it spurting in bursts. Why can I hear it? I move my hands from the front of my head down to my ears . . . and find that I still have my hearing aids in.
“Shit.” I step away from the water, coming dangerously close to the gross wall. “Shit,” I say again. How did I forget to take them out?
I stop the shower. I didn’t bring my Dry & Store. It’s a little gray dehumidifier box that needs to be plugged into the wall, which I thought would be too much work. Maybe Ethan has his?
I’m still dripping as I throw on the clothes I’d been wearing before, rather than my pajamas. I dry my hearing aids with my towel, leaving my things behind as I race back to the cabins.
The small campfire is already burning bright. As I rush past, Isaac waves at me. He’s already changed into flannel checkered pajama pants with a gray Yosemite hoodie.
“Hey, I want to talk to you,” he signs, but I keep walking. “You okay?” he asks.
“I—” I cup my hearing aids in one hand and show him. “Where’s Ethan?”
Isaac is confused but points to the staff cabin. I hurry away and find Ethan crashed on a pile of spare mattresses in the corner of the room.
“What’s up?” he asks, immediately sitting up. “Is everyone okay?”
I hold out my hearing aids. “Do you have your Dry & Store?”
He does. Ethan takes the devices so they can dry in his cabin for the night and be back to working condition by morning.
I rush back to the bathhouse, take the fastest shower of my entire life, drop my things off in my cabin, and finally, more than fifteen minutes late, make my way to the campfire for my shift.
Isaac has pulled the bench close to the flames and is poking the logs with a long stick. He doesn’t look up when I take a seat across from him. I shouldn’t have panicked so much over my hearing aids earlier. They’ve gotten wet before and turned out fine. I’d give anything to go back and respond differently when Isaac told me he wanted to chat. Maybe I was just trying to avoid him again in case I didn’t like what he had to share. But it could have been something good. Or something completely meaningless about our shift.
We sit ten feet apart across the firepit, ignoring each other’s presence, until he finally looks up. “Okay?”
I nod.
“Your hearing aids?”
“They’ll be fine now.”
He looks away. What did he want to talk to me about? There’s no way I’m asking him, so I guess I’ll never know.
It dawns on me how much effort Isaac’s been putting into communicating with me this summer, from day one. It must not have been easy for him. But now my ASL skills are better, and somehow, Isaac and I are here, not communicating.
This is awkward as hell, but maybe I’ll find some way to break the ice.
I wave toward him again. “Nice fire. Did you—” He signs again to cut me off before I can ask if he built it himself.
“Sorry. I’m tired.” He leans back against the picnic table, then pulls a Nintendo Switch out of his backpack and a Fruit Roll-Up from his stash.
“Oh, okay,” I say to myself, burying my face in my phone.
But when Jaden shows up a few minutes later, Isaac suddenly decides he’s in a chatty mood after all—just not with me. I marvel as his hands fly at true speed.
I stand to leave, wanting to spend the rest of my shift somewhere else, but Jaden waves for my attention. “Hey, you can stay with us. You and I haven’t chatted much.”
I can’t tell from the embarrassment on Isaac’s face whether he’s told his friends about last night yet or if this interruption is a coincidence.